All The Classic Movies That I Have Seen

1. Dancing Lady (1933).

One would think that a movie that stars both Clark Gable and Joan Crawford and which features performances from not only a former member of the Algonquin Round Table but also the Three Stooges would actually be pretty good.

And as long as the movie is focusing on the relationship between ambitious showman Gable and equally ambitious Crawford, the movie is not that bad.

However, in the end, it just was not my cup of tea. I suspect that I have been spoiled by both Busby Berkeley and Astaire and Rogers.

2. Thank You, Jeeves! (1936).

This is allegedly the film that first introduced actor David Niven to American audiences -- which is a big shame because this movie is not all that good. Perhaps because it was not so much inspired by the original P.G. Wodehouse books that first introduced Jeeves the definite English butler as it is by American spy movies. I suppose if you like slapstick, it is okay, but for the most part I found it a disappointment. And its use of a black character for cheap comic effect does not help matters.

David Niven played Bertie Wooster, the man who was Jeeves’s employer in the book but the way his character was written in this movie has almost nothing to do with the way the character was written by the original author. And the less said about Arthur Treacher’s Jeeves, the better. Though it does explain why Mr. Treacher is more famous today for his seafood business than for his acting career...

3. Step Lively, Jeeves! (1937).

This is just a tad better than its prequel, Thank You, Jeeves, though I can't help but find it funny that it accomplishes this by writing out Bertie Wooster as soon as possible -- David Niven apparently proved too popular to appear in the sequel so his part is played by a less-than-famous actor who does not appear on screen for more than two minutes -- and devoting the lion’s share of attention to characters that are not Jeeves. The plot revolves around the attempt by two con men to bilk Jeeves out of his hard-earned savings by convincing him that he is an heir to Sir Francis Drake. Their efforts eventually get covered in the legitimate media and attract the attention of a would-be social climber whose husband is a former gangster. The woman assumes that Jeeves is just what she needs to get the social respectability she has been so ardently craving and orders her husband to have Jeeves forcibly “invited” to their estate.

Poor Jeeves is under the assumption that his invitation is legitimate and only the con men suspect something is amiss. However, by the time they find out that they are right, they find themselves faced with the unpleasant task of having to confess all to the former gangster -- a man who is not above punishing bearers of bad news in a not-so-legal fashion. So the conflict is set. The would-be petty criminals (the con men) versus the real criminals (the former gangster and his thuggish employees) and it says something that the movie actually kept me in suspense as to which side would end up winning despite the fact that neither side was all that sympathetic. However, the movie was hardly true to the spirit of the original Wodehouse stories and certainly not something I would recommend seeing unless one is very, very desperate.